A man rounded the top of the rise in what had been Lilia’s village. He raised a large walking stick, then began climbing down toward them.

Gian rose. “He’s a woodland Dhai,” she said.

Lilia finished her mahuan powder as the man came toward them. The day was hot, and he was bare-chested. He wore what looked like fibrous trousers. A linen tunic hung from his belt. He carried no pack, only the walking stick.

“Are you traveling alone?” he said. “You valley Dhai?”

Lilia noticed his accent now; she had met a few other woodland Dhai at the temple. She didn’t have much of an accent anymore, but his felt warm and familiar.

“Is there a village here?” Lilia asked. She coughed. “Maybe… they moved?”

“Village?” he said. “No. I’m sorry to bother you, but if you’re traveling on your own, you should know there’s a man in the woods, a hunter. Foreign. Saiduan. I’ve been through three family camps now, all dead. I bedded down with another group just last night. Two girls there said he’s been looking for one of ours.” He glanced at Lilia. “Young temple girl, they said.”

“Thank you,” Gian said. “We’ll keep an eye out.”

He gestured behind him. “There are family camps just up the peninsula, if you’re looking for rest or company. You look thin. Are you hungry?”

“We’re fine,” Gian said.

Lilia noticed then that he’d come from the direction of the crashing trees. No one – especially not a woodland Dhai, who should know better – would have trekked up the other side of that hill through a herd of walking trees.

She glanced behind them, back at the game trail they’d followed along the coast. “Ahead of us?” she said. “You mean the camps are behind us, where you came from.”

He grinned. Too hard. “Not sure I follow.” He pointed back up the hill with his stick. “I came down from there.”

“You doubled around,” Lilia said. “You circled behind us and came up the hill to pretend you were ahead of us. Why were you following us?”

Gian put her hand on the butt of her willowthorn sword. The hilt of it elongated and curled around her wrist.

“Hold on now,” the man said, raising his free hand. “He said you were a temple Dhai, but you do have the eye of a woodlander, don’t you?”

“I don’t want to kill anyone,” Gian said. “I suggest you move on and tell the sanisi you couldn’t find us.”

“Afraid I can’t do that,” he said, and Lilia noticed a trembling in his voice. “He sent me to track you. I turn back now and he kills me and my family.”

“Then we are at an impasse,” Gian said.

The man grinned again.

He lashed out with his heavy stick.